“‘Cook,’ she says, ‘Cook, it ain’t the cake as is tipsy-cake, it’s summit else;’ and me a-sitting in that blessed chair, aside of the fire, feeling as if all the use was took outer my legs, when I only just put my lips to the sherry, just to see if it was good enough for the sponge-cake, as I took so much pains to make, tho’ it did get burnt at the bakehouse to that degree that I was obleeged to cut quite a lunch off all round. But I wouldn’t bemean myself to speak; for ‘Martha,’ I says to myself, ‘Martha Jinks,’ I says, ‘if you are a cook, you are a sooperior woman, and with your egsperiens, you needn’t take sauce from any one.’ So I sat looking at her that disdainful that it quite brought on a sort of sterrical hiccups, and then, I couldn’t help it, she went on so cruelly, I melted into tears, and there they was a-dripping—dripping—dripping all over the kidgin, and the missus a-going on still at that rate that I couldn’t abear it, and fainted away so that they had to carry me upstairs to bed, and bumped my pore head agen the ballisters, so that it ached fearful next morning, and I was obliged to have the least sup of g—, you know, in a wine-glass, took medicinally, you know, for if there is any mortial thing in this life as is disgusting it’s a woman as takes to sperrits.
“But, there, I wouldn’t stay. I couldn’t, bless you; for, as I says to Mary, ‘Mary,’ I says, ‘you may lead me with a bit o’ darning-cotton, but clothes-line wouldn’t pull me.’ Oh, no, I couldn’t have put up with it if missus had gone down on her bended knees in the sand on my beautiful white kidgin floor, and begged of me to stay. Oh, no—I give warning there and then. ‘A month’s wages or a month’s warning,’ I says, and she give me the month’s wages, and said I was to get out of the cruel house.
“And then I went to live with some common people, who had just built themselves a new house out by the Crischial Pallus, and there I stopped three months, till I was a’most worn to skin and bone, with the worry, and bother, and want of rest.
“First night I goes there, and takes my trunk, and a bundle, and a bonnet-box, and a basket, I might have known as all would go wrong, for the cabman sauced me to that degree it was orful; but I got rid of him at last, with my boxes a-standing outside the willa gate, out in the rain; and then no lights in the house, and no gash laid on, and no one to help me in with my things, and me a-going mosh—posh, pudge—mudge up the the soft gravel, and losing my gloshes a-sticking in the wet muddy stuff, and the wind a-blowing to that degree as my umbrelly—a bran new alpakky—was bust right down one of its ribs, and caught in the iron railings; while all the while I knowed as the rain was a-getting in to my best bonnet, and a man a-tumbling over my big box, as stood out in the roadway-path, and me without strength in my lines to pull it in the gate.
“‘Never mind your shins, my good man,’ I says, ‘help me in with my things, and I’ll find you a bit of cold meat,’ and then I recklets myself as there might be no cold meat in the house, and I turns it into a pint of beer, being a stranger to the place.
“‘And what’s your name, young woman,’ I says to a fine doll of a housemaid, a-darning stockings in the noo kidgin, as smelt of paint to that degree that you might have been lodging in a ile-shop, while the man stood a-turning over his happince on the mat—I mean on his hands, and him on the door-mat, and not satisfied till I give him twopence more, which not having enough I give him a sixpence, to go and get it, and him never a-coming back, and keeping the whole sixpence and the two pence, too, as would have tried any woman’s temper, if even she hadn’t been a cook, which is the mildest and quietest beings as ever dished a jynt.
“‘And what’s your name, young woman?’ I says to my fine madam, as she sat there and didn’t seem to know the proper respect to years, though she did prick her finger till the blood come, and serve her right, too, and if I did not expect from her looks as she’d be that vulgar to answer me disrespeckful and say, when I said ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Pudding and Tame,’ like the gals did when I went to school, which wasn’t yesterday, you know; but she didn’t, but says, quite huffy, ‘Jane,’ she says.
“‘Ho!’ I says, werry distant, as I took off my bonnet and shawl, and laid ’em on the dresser. ‘Ho!’ I says, and then I sits me down afore the fire, and puts my feet on the fender; for as I had my gloshes on to come in I wouldn’t wear my best boots, but left ’em in my box, and there, through there being a crack in the side, if the water hadn’t soaked right through, and wetten’d my feet, so that they steamed again.
“At last, seeing as my fine lady meant to be uppish, I says to her, I says, in a tone o’ wyce as showed I didn’t mean to be trifled with, and if she meant to sit in my kidgin she must know who was missus. ‘Jane,’ I says, ‘you’d best put some more coals on the fire.’
“‘You’d best not,’ she says. ‘It smokes.’